


Vianna

by Teawithmagician



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, F/M, Het, Mysticism, Prequel, Songfic, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 05:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5236892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ellana Lavellan wants to know the true nature of magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vianna

**Author's Note:**

> AU (in which elven mythology is mercilessly attacked by Tolkien and Children of Danu references).  
> A songfic for Eluveitie, “Vianna”  
> Prequel to the Inquisition storyline, due to which Ellana and Solas were acquainted before the Rift opened.

Dancing in the Awen  
You became the word  
As tears mingled with the Rhodanos  
And as the earth opened up  
To receive its sacrifice  
You blessed the fen  
The consecrated ground 

Eluveitue — “Vianna”

Ellana Lavellan had magic, and it made her the First to the Keeper, but magic without knowledge was never enough. Ellana wanted to know how it works: she had magic, but how she accumulated it? Was it her mind, her body of her soul? Was the magic a part of one’s nature, or it was given by something - or somebody from a different kind?

Gods of her people were deaf and numb, they never heard prayers of the folk they once belonged. Ellana wouldn’t call to gods out of sheer belief, but there also have been Other gods, who were spoken of by the Keeper like this: the Other Gods. Half forces of nature, half echoes of Arlathan magic, they were said to be sleeping in the foggy places between Here and There, not interested in demons or mortal beings, longing only to sleep and to dream of the past.

Ellana did not believe that Other Gods would listen to her, they rarely shown sign of their presents, they never gave anything in response of any prayers or sacrifices: they were too weak or too old to inflame, seduce and enchant like demons did. But they there said to bear Knowledge about the days of old, which they could share if properly called. Other gods were fond of singing, a song could lure them out, and Ellana knew a song that would have fitted.

Ellana was not sure about the success, but she thought that she, at least, could try. She was a magician after all, who should have tried but a magician, especially if this magician were able to become a Keeper one day?

So Ellana took her staff, her cloak and her spellbook, and went down into the hidden place in the place down the hills she had found while searching for herbs. This place once was important for her folk, but now it was forgotten, but yet powerful: Ellana felt the power of this place though the Veil there wasn’t too thick. So she sat down in the circle of white stones, put her staff under her feet, shot her eyes and started to sing.

That was a very old song, and the Keeper said not to sing it it the places of power, but Ellana knew what she were doing. Keeper was against singing that ancient song because in the grim places the song could attract demons, but the place Ellana chose wasn’t grim. It was full of pure energy, the power of life itself soughed in the leaves whispered and blinked on the tops of the stones with sunlight. Ellana felt safe here, and she believed to her feelings.

“We wandered led by the gods, you gave a voice,” started Ellana, “Uîdluiā of the Allobroges, your feet danced in the footprints of the Otherworld, the words of your songs carved into our hearts.”

Ellana didn’t know the names of the gods, or mighty spirits, to whom the song was calling — and nobody knew for they were lost long before the Elven Gods rise and fall. They were oldest gods, so old, that even Mythal, the Protector and All-Mother, came after they were gone long ago, and their voices in the ripple of the Veil might have been nothing more than a memory of their dreams, still sometimes responding to a long forgotten song.

Ellana read about such things in Tevinter book she owned once. The book was bought in a shop in the city, run by a very calm man with a sun tattoo on his forehead. When Ellana asked him who made him this tattoo, he answered, and his answer made her burst out of the doors, ran away and never went back. This meeting was dreadful, but the book was precious and it explained Ellana a lot.

The song was not a spell, but it was written in the times when magicians needed no spells to make fire and ice omens, no rites to invocate spirits and speak to the gods. And the most important thing of it that was it was Calling a Name. That was quite a common name, Ellana’s aunt and grandmother shared it, it meant “Alive”, but for this song, it sounded more like an anchor to her Calling, that made it powerful, made it loud, made it demanding. That name was the name They would hear, and by her name they would answer to Ellana, even though only in her head, so weak they were, so incapable of embodying themselves in the mortal world.

So Ellana sang and stopped just to hold her breath, but, when she held, she heard no answer. Ellana told herself that well, that was an experiment - it wasn’t promised to be all easy and great. She made herself sing, again and again, claiming the Name of the One Alive, whom oldest gods and new ones, who, in their turn, became old and weary, loved the most, but nobody answered.

And when Ellana, being nearly desperate, called once again, still keeping her eyes shut not to frighten away the vision of the sleeping gods’ dreams, to her “Who are you to me, my Vianna?” was faint, but audible answer, “My bright light”. Her heart beating like a hammer, Ellana repeated, still not believing her mad luck, “Who are you to me, my Vianna?” the answer differed, “My sacrifice.”

Ellana asked for the third time nearly breathless, and the answer was, repeating the words of the ancient anthem, “My patroness, Hallowed by the Name, my child.”

For the third time, Ellana sang so quietly that nearly whispered, and the one who answered her wasn’t faint and heard as though from the distance anymore: it was all loud and clear, echoing in her head.

Ellana started, she heard the noisy breath of the Beast right over her ear, she felt eternal fever of his insatiable pharynx. That was the danger of her journey, the one thing that could possibly go wrong with her Godcalling: the song was heard in the Fade, and The One Who Always Roams could have heard her before the ones she intended to ask, and came to answer - so he came.

The fault was Ellana’s, she accepted in undeniedly in the very moment she realized who had heard her Calling and responded. In the dreadliest seconds, slow like frozen honey, Ellana pitied her life and farewelled it, but when she was ready to be torn apart into aeons of pieces by body and Spirit, she heard the voice, deeply modulated and tender:

“You returned again, and called to me, like in the times of the past. You have come to me and called to me, and still you are afraid, sic! do not remember.”

“Who… who are you?”, asked Ellana haltingly. She knew who he was and shivered with terror, but according to the basic rules of Invocation she was bound to ask: it wasn’t safe to name the one who had come to you through the Veil by yourself, it was he who must name himself, and you should call him by the name he told you, no matter how fake it sounded.

“You know who I am, both your past and present self,” he was obviously slightly irritated by her answer, but still responded.

“I guess I do,” answered Ellana cautiously. It was reckless to make a god angry, even a god of his kind, and she tried to soothe her last words, but hadn’t succeeded: he said nothing when she spoke, so she spoke once again. “Then… Then who am I?”

She was sure she only made him angrier and prepared to the things much worse than prompted her imagination, but he just laughed. That was a dry, short laugh of a creature who hadn’t too many reasons to suddenly become filled with laughter. That puzzled Ellana, he was known as a joker, but it seemed like the wasn’t very fond of jokes.

“Your mind remained sharp. It’s good. You can make use of it after all that will come and go, like the aeons pass.”

“What will come, and what will go?” Ellana asked, her caution overcome by her curiosity.

“Ah,” he exclaimed. “You’ll see. You’ll see it by yourself, Vianna.”

“Why do you call me like this?” she asked again, hypnotized by the sound of his voice, and then she felt a Touch.

His touch made her flinched. His hand was a paw, but also a hand, and maybe something like and ectoplasm left by ghosts and spirits of despair, but it was warm like he had hot blood in his veins, but underneath this warmness, there was an eternal cold that scorched her skin, though making it no harm. And when he touched her, Ellana remembered how was it.

All vivid, all dance, worlds turning, planets making a neat line in the diademe of the stars. Joy and laughter, endless dance, stars colliding and exploding, new words appearing - an the light, the light! She danced in this light knowing only the world suddenly apeared from the Void, eager to listen to her song, but when it was divided, causing her a pain that made her mad with all with suffering.

“How could you?” Ellana screamed with despair, but that wasn’t the voice she always thought to be her: that was the voice she was even unable to hear, but it made trees crack and bend, and the wind howl, and the thunder respond to her anger with impending grumbling. “How could you do this to me?”

“You know I had no choice,” was the sad answer. "You know how I loved you, but I had no choice.”

“There was always a choice!”“But that was a time I didn’t have any.”

“You had a choice,” she cried leaping on her feet and opening her eyes. A thunderstorm was coming, and the circle of white stones could be her ringlet, so high she was, higher than the trees, higher than the sun, so high what even her little step could have shaken the ground. Shapeless void of many eyes eddied before her, black and impenetrable, and this Void was looking at her and extending to reach her, and when it touched her, she felt like falling into the abyss - and fainted.

Ellana woke up on a woolen blanket, her head ached and her hands scratched. She outstretched for her staff, but it wasn’t there. All her body ached and it made Ellana think of a very unfortunate invocation. She remembered nothing of what had happened, but that was quite normal. Maybe the shock was too much for her, and her mind preferred to forget the ending of her journey to the circle of white stones.

But still Ellana had questions. Whose blanket was it? And who took care of her while she was… err… away?

“Ah, you’ve already woken up,” said the voice from the other side of the fire. Ellana shielded oneself with her arm, the light made her headache explode with pain. She still couldn’t see who spoke to her, but his accent seemed familiar.

“Andaran atish’an,” started Ellana doubtfully. “Ara seranna-ma… Ma melava halan?”

All she heard was a dry, short laugh, as though her savior was clearing his throat. And when he started to speak.

***

If you like this, you may also like my original work: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5239496/chapters/12085874  
Advertising is hard, I confess ;)


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